


Murder Weapon, Paintbrush

by violent_ends



Series: Involuntary Revelations [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Background Chloe Decker, Background Dan Espinoza, Devil Face (Lucifer TV), Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar Bonding, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar Friendship, Ella Lopez Finds Out, Established Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Gen, Lucifer Morningstar & Ella Lopez Bonding, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Devil Reveal, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Needs A Hug, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Wing Reveal, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 10:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20673989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violent_ends/pseuds/violent_ends
Summary: An art collector has been murdered in his house. While at the crime scene, the resemblance between Lucifer and the subject of a specific painting catches Ella's attention and sets her on the path to a life-altering discovery.[post-S4 and implied return from Hell; Ella Devil reveal]“You’re the Devil" she says almost giddily, with a laugh that wasn’t supposed to sound as deranged as it does, but it’s all so damn crazy - not the fact that the Devil exists, mind you, but that he lives in L.A. and works for the police and is Ella's friend. What the Hell?! (she is allowed to say that, right?)





	Murder Weapon, Paintbrush

The murder is as symbolic as it can be: a paintbrush right through the eye, from the pointy end, of course. The victim: an art collector and patron of the arts who might have refused to purchase an item from a struggling painter or sculptor in need. Ella takes pictures, bags evidence, tells all of this and more to a very focused Chloe and a mildly interested Lucifer, while Dan takes a look around the luxurious apartment (he tags along every once in a while, when nothing new drops on his desk).

Once her job is done, she zips her bag closed and stands from where she’s been kneeling next to the body. That’s when something on the wall, or better, someone, catches her eye.

“Guys, doesn’t that look _exactly_ like Lucifer?”

Her three colleagues all turn around to follow the direction of her index finger, pointed at a framed painting on the wall. It features a tall, lean but muscular man, naked except for a white piece of cloth around his waist, stopping a bit above the knee. He is leaning against the trunk of a tree, one of his arms stretching upwards to pluck an apple from the branches, the other behind him for support. His expression is blissful and content, his face illuminated by extremely realistic rays of sunshine streaming into the painting from beyond the frame.

The rapture and enjoyment in his features are downright sensual, and he looks almost unmistakably like a certain civilian consultant who owns a nightclub and claims to be Satan in the flesh.

“It kinda does" Dan comments, rubbing the back of his head before shrugging as if to dismiss the discovery entirely.

“Uhm, I- I guess I see a resemblance" Chloe mutters, looking worried for some reason.

“Of course it looks like me, it _is_ me" Lucifer says at last, prompting everyone else to turn and stare at him. “Doesn’t do me justice though; I told François as much, but painters were all too bloody full of themselves to accept constructive criticism, especially in the 18th century.”

“Dude, are you serious right now? It’s just a coincidence!” Dan exclaims exasperatedly, his hands on his hips. “Every now and then two people look like each other, it’s not that weird.”

Lucifer grins in a way Ella has come to associate with a snarky remark on the way from his brain to his mouth, and especially when Dan is the one on the receiving end, she knows the joke won’t be very kind.

“Does that mean that at some point, a Detective Douche doppelganger roamed this Earth? Ugh, that is a truly _dreadful_ thought, Daniel" he intones smugly, a hand over his heart to convey his distress.

Ella is pretty sure that one of these days she’ll have to physically separate them and force them into two different corners of the room like children on time-out, although Dan's anger about Charlotte’s death has lessened since he started therapy with Linda. Still, it’s like they can’t help it, and she’s not sure whether the fact that Lucifer and Chloe are now together _together_ (after a mysteriously long business trip to seemingly try and launch Lux Vegas that totally didn't look like Lucifer was chickening out again) is helping the situation or making it worse. Dan is way over Chloe by now, but the British playboy has this nasty habit of hinting at their “sexy times" and Ella assumes it must be at least slightly unpleasant for him to hear certain things about his ex wife.

“Lucifer, behave" pipes up said ex wife, eyeing him with a little smile and earning a groan from her boyfriend-consultant (finally, _finally_ because Ella has been waiting for ages and hopefully she’ll get to be godmother to a litter of adorable Deckerstar babies – Pecker didn’t sound that great but this has such a nice ring to it).

This is fun and all, of course: the slightly inappropriate crime scene banter that keeps them occupied sometimes, before diving back into the gruesome details of the case they have to solve. But the more Ella stares at the painting, the clearer it becomes. It’s Lucifer. Now, the likelihood of two people who are not twins looking identical to one another is one in one trillion. So the painting must be a recent original, or a modern reinterpretation of an old one. It wouldn’t be too farfetched to imagine Lucifer posing almost nude for a work of art that boosts his already gigantic ego; the odd thing is that he didn’t purchase it to hang it at the penthouse or at Lux (or at the precinct, now _that_ would make for a fun day) for the whole city to behold.

“So, how did you end up being a model?” Ella inquires just to enjoy another one of Lucifer’s imaginative stories, as she slowly walks toward the painting to have a better look. She thinks she catches Chloe shaking her head at him, as if telling him not to answer – is her detective friend embarrassed by his quirkiness, all of a sudden? She should learn to live with it if their relationship is serious, and it better be because Ella is this close to buying celebratory mugs with their faces on them (she doesn’t have much of a love life of her own, okay?).

“Oh, I just enjoyed the attention, you see” Lucifer starts, ignoring Chloe to humor Ella as she gives her back to him, her eyes fixed on the face of the painted man. “Plus I was short on cash back then, and the guy had this quaint little apartment in Paris; food and accommodation free of charge in exchange for modeling and... well. Let’s say paintbrushes didn’t go in the _eye_, at the time.”

“Come on, man!” Dan bursts from the far corner of the room, where he apparently went to distance himself from the conversation.

“You should try it, Daniel, although I'm not sure there’s any space left with the stick you have shoved up your butt.”

“Dick.”

“Right, that too-"

“Guys!”

After Chloe cuts them off, Ella hears them both mutter half-hearted apologies and shakes her head to herself – men truly are like children, as much as they try to act tough.

“Were you supposed to be Adam?” she asks Lucifer while she focuses on the apple the man is reaching for. Most paintings depict Adam and Eve hiding their faces in shame, their backs hunched in repentance, almost deformed under the weight of the original sin. In this one, the artist is trying to say that there is pride in finding your own path, even if it means distancing yourself from the law of God: fitting for Lucifer to pose or claim to have posed to convey such a message of rebellion and self-actualization.

“Sadly, and ironically, yes" Lucifer's voice tells her. “And believe me, I did him a favor. He might have been the first man but he certainly wasn’t the most good-looking, let me tell you. Dad still needed a bit of practice back then.”

Ella can’t help but chuckle at his imagination and dedication to stay in character 24/7. God, how does he do that? Once she tried to speak in a British accent for a whole day to make fun of him, but she only lasted a couple of hours before getting tired of it (it was also ridiculous, as he didn’t fail to point out the whole time, although everyone else was laughing so Ella still counts it as a victory).

Cops and forensics start to shuffle out; the sadly familiar sound of a bag being zipped up around a corpse finally snaps Ella from her reverie. Before leaving, she glances down at the tag attached to the wall next to the frame of the painting, similar to those you would find in a museum.

_François Lemoyne. Paris, 1730. Original._

*

Several days go by and the thought doesn’t leave her mind, not during the day, not at night. She googles the painting and tries to find information about the model, but these kind of details never survive the passing of time.

It can’t be, of course. Ella is just obsessing over it for some reason; maybe she just has a lot of time on her hands now that _The Cabin_ has not been renewed for another season (a murder on set doesn’t exactly invite people to participate, she presumes).

But there is no harm in seeing it through and looking for a definitive answer, right? It will be easy enough to do.  
  
She has science on her side.

*

The bouncers of Lux know her by now (Ella tries not to think about the reason behind it, which is her slightly out-of-hand partying streak), so she’s able to slip inside and quietly walk to the elevator during closing time on a Monday night, just after dinner. Before heading home, she discreetly asked Chloe if they had plans for the night and the detective told her she would just have a quick bite at the penthouse and rush back home because she wasn't able to find a babysitter that would stay longer and Maze is out of town, so Ella knows Lucifer will be alone, if he didn’t follow his girlfriend home.

The metal doors of the penthouse open to reveal him standing in the middle of the room, his clothed back to the entrance.

“Detective, I knew you’d ditch your offspring and be back for another round of the clock! Big Ben is about to- Oh!”

Ella covers her eyes just in time – well, almost in time, but no one needs to know that – as Lucifer, after turning around, unzipping his pants and shoving them down his legs at lightning speed (Devil speed? Angel speed? Is that a thing?) hastily pulls them back up to tuck himself in with an apologetic look on his face.

“Dude, remind me to text you next time I want to drop by!” Ella comments, reprimanding herself for her carelessness. Lucifer is not into orgies anymore – Chloe doesn’t strike her as the type and she said she’d be in a rush, but then again, you never know – but Ella must have forgotten that there is no telling what one can find stepping into his penthouse unannounced, even now that Lucifer is in a committed relationship. And allergic to underwear, as it turns out. It's nothing she hasn't seen before after the nudist retreat, of course, but somehow it feels kind of awkward when it's only them in a closed space at night.

“Yes, Miss Lopez, that would certainly be the more advisable way to proceed" he agrees in his convoluted, elegant way of speaking, but there is no real irritation in his voice, mostly amusement. “So, what brings you here, my nerdy friend? Did you kill someone with a swing of that lovely ponytail of yours?”

He gives her a cheeky smile and walks to the bar as he waits for her reply. The sudden silence reminds her of why she came in the first place: certainly not to make jokes, although the banter with Lucifer is always entertaining. Ella takes advantage of his distraction to nibble at her bottom lip and shuffle her feet where she’s standing, and by the time Lucifer is pouring what looks like scotch in two tumblers, she still hasn’t opened her mouth. She silently accepts the glass Lucifer offers her when he returns, then follows him to sit on the couch across from the armchair he decides to occupy.

“Miss Lopez?” he inquires, arching an eyebrow. Ella takes a quick, long swig of burning courage and stares at him for another instant.

“_Yourenothuman_" she blurts out, jamming the words together to make them almost unrecognizable even to her own ears. Lucifer stops the motion of the hand that was bringing the glass to his mouth, stilling.

“Come again?” he asks, but Ella can sense that he actually understood. She swallows and takes a deep breath, willing her speech to slow down.

“After I saw the painting in the art collector's apartment, I stole the butt of one your cigarettes from the smoking area at the precinct and tested it” she explains, going through the process again inside her head, but it’s the conclusion that truly matters, and she needs to repeat it. Out loud. “You are not human.”

_And you are immortal. You were there in the 18th century, posing as a model for a painting and looking exactly as you do now, which is totally cool, yep, no big deal._

Is this why he didn’t die when he got shot in the gut at Lux? A miraculous recovery, they called it at the hospital; no need for surgery. Ella vaguely remembers being surprised but she was still coming down from a major combination of mind-altering substances and the high of defusing a bomb (everyone’s hair was so shiny, she also remembers; not that it’s relevant, of course).

“I most certainly am not, love: it would be hard to maintain this level of perfection with the whole bruising and aging thing you have going on” Lucifer quips, but the nervous chuckle that follows gives him away, and so does the haste with which he gulps down the entire content of his glass and sets it on the table.

Ella didn’t expect him to deny it – because there is nothing to deny, because he never lies, because _science_ doesn’t lie – but now she finds herself not knowing how to continue, because he doesn’t seem to have any intention to lead the conversation, leaving her in charge of it entirely.

“So, everything you say... is true" she concludes dumbly, hearing her voice as if distant and far away, like an out-of-body experience. Which means _everything_, she realizes. That he was born in Heaven, that he ruled Hell, that he has witnessed countless historical events. Jeez, that paintbrush didn’t just murder a guy: it poked a hole in Ella’s reality and now she has to hold on for dear life not to get sucked in the vortex of her own confusion.

“Yes, it is" Lucifer confirms as he has done one thousand times before, studying her with his dark, piercing eyes, and there is a caution in his pose that tells Ella he is expecting her to jump up from the couch and throw herself off the balcony at any moment now. “Are you-"

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my _God_!” she cuts him off, placing her glass on the table separating them to cup her own cheeks, a manic excitement suddenly controlling her as if all she needed to properly freak out was verbal confirmation from him.

“Must you really drag Him into this?” Lucifer comments dryly, rolling his eyes – because oh, right, the Big Guy is his _Dad_ and He is 100% real and Ella has denied His existence for quite some time before coming back to her senses. She will surely need to apologize for that, but all in due time: she is in Lucifer’s presence now, _that_ Lucifer, oh my G- _nope, none of that._

“You’re the Devil" she says almost giddily, with a laugh that wasn’t supposed to sound as deranged as it does, but it’s all so damn _crazy_ \- not the fact that the Devil exists, mind you, but that he lives in L.A. and works for the police and is Ella's _friend_. What the Hell?! (she is allowed to say that, right?)

“I am" Lucifer replies slowly, still worried by her enthusiasm, but there is a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as his body relaxes slightly into the armchair. “Blimey, I wish the Detective had taken it as you are now – would have saved us a whole lot of trouble.”

Ella’s laughter dies down as her mind transports her back into the present, filing that information for later (Chloe knows and is in love with him, that is so _cool_). The overwhelming storm of new discoveries hits her in full force, and as her last chuckle rumbles from her chest, it carries away the shock and leaves her with an unexpected sense of uneasiness, a twitch of panic at her nerve endings and extremities, like the very start of an electrical current lighting a bulb.

But Chloe knows, and Chloe is a woman of sound mind, a person of reason: it can’t be so bad, right? _He_ can’t be so bad, can he?

“You're... the Devil" she says again, as if tasting the words in her mouth, trying to feel them and settle on a reaction, an emotion, a state of mind that she can live with now that her world has been rocked from its foundations again, blurring the lines between normal and _not_. She doesn’t mean to sound worried or intimidated, but Lucifer's warm expression shifts immediately, his muscles tensing, the line of his jaw hardening at her pensive, tentative tone, and Ella mentally slaps herself for it.

He stands up and walks out on the balcony, giving her a moment, or maybe giving it to himself. Ella is realizing only now that this must be hard for him, too; the uncertainty of not knowing how people will react to a truth he declares all the time, exorcising how real it is, once they finally decide to believe it. She stares at the tense line of his shoulders hidden by his white shirt, encompassed by the star-like twinkling of the city lights. She thinks of reaching him and giving him a hug, but then Lucifer speaks.

“If it's scaring you, please know that I would never hurt you" he says as he turns around slowly, pleading her to believe him with his eyes, and Ella doesn’t doubt it for a moment, she never did – it breaks her heart that he feels the need to say it. “And besides, Rae-Rae would kill me if I did – well, let’s say she would _try_.”

He says it lightly, almost conversationally, but there is a quiet intensity in his eyes as he waits for something to click into place. Ella's brain short-circuits for a moment, replaying the words like an audio tape.

“You... you know Rae-Rae?” she asks, swallowing. She remembers mentioning her to him once, but how can he speak of her this way?

Lucifer gives her what she has started to call his big-brother smile: warm, protective, comforting. Old, somehow. Wise beyond his years – oh, right, he doesn’t look his age, he never did.

“Rae-Rae is my little sister" he reveals, his eyes sparkling as they crinkle at the corners. “Her name is Azrael, and she is, quite literally, your guardian angel.”

Ella’s mouth falls open in a silent, probably ridiculous-looking ‘O'. So Rae-Rae is not a ghost. She is... an angel. Because she is Lucifer’s sister and Lucifer is an angel, too. The connection suddenly gives validation to, well, to her entire life; to what she thought was insanity or just plain weirdness or the result of some undetected trauma in her brain or in her soul. Chloe’s acceptance meant a lot, but this – this is everything.

“This means I'm not crazy" she says around a smile, sighing in relief and looking at Lucifer in awe as a rush of gratitude flows through her. Lucifer stares at her with fondness and shakes his head minutely, a disbelieving chuckle escaping his lips.

“Of course you’re not crazy, darling. You’re just very special.”

Ella’s legs move, she realizes, and suddenly she is slamming her body against his chest to give him one of her bone-crushing hugs. She can feel him hesitate for a moment, as usual, before his arms tentatively wrap around her small frame. A feeble voice reminds her that she is hugging the Devil, but a stronger one drowns it, suffocates it, overpowers it with another, truer notion: she is hugging Lucifer. Not _that_ Lucifer. _Their_ Lucifer.

Lucifer, who sent her and her abuela to the opera on a helicopter ride; who snatched a blanket from a colleague who was just attacked by Maze to wrap it around her shoulders for comfort, just because she had been tricked into hugging her; who went with her to church despite his protests (wow, makes so much more sense now). Lucifer, the caring and attentive friend who brings her complicated coffee orders and listens to her droning on about the qualities of synthetic wood; the incorrigible, insufferable charmer who almost drugged the whole precinct with rave donuts by mistake.

“Are you okay, Miss Lopez?”

His whispering voice breaks the silence, quietly radiating from his chest and into the ear she is pressing against it. Ella looks up at him and can’t help but smile at his antics.

“Will you ever just call me Ella?” she asks, shaking her head.

“You know me, dear, I have a penchant for titles" he shrugs, slowly stepping away from her embrace to lean his back against the glass railing. “Seriously though. Are you... okay? With me?”

It shoud be harder to answer, probably. Normally. But Ella has never been normal, and now more than ever she knows that’s a plus. She has been graced, _honored_, with the presence of an angel in her life – no, _two_ angels; three if she counts Amenadiel (or are there more? Suddenly her world is full of possibilities).

“You are my friend" she tells him. “And... and you did nothing to make me scared of you. So I'm not. I don’t want to be. You don’t deserve it.”

Okay, she freaked out while reading the test results, hands shaking and breath quickening and the sudden thought of packing up and moving back to Detroit, but then... then the panic stopped, and she decided she had to see him and understand. She had a million questions to ask him, but it turns out that _his_ questions, his doubts about being accepted, are much more important.

And Ella isn’t good at hating, nor at despising; she knows what it feels like to be alone, not understood, an outcast, a freak. She knows that satanists and blood offerings and human sacrifices, things everyone associates with Lucifer, are _humanity’s_ doing. If God isn’t there to stop the bad, but only to help people get through it, then maybe Lucifer doesn’t exist to incite evil, but only to deal with it accordingly.

Ella is too kind for her own good, people keep telling her. To her, it seems like you can never be too kind.

She can almost see the fear of rejection evaporate from Lucifer’s figure at her answer, dissipating into the night air and curling up towards the sky like smoke from a chimney.

“You truly are something else, Miss- Ella" Lucifer catches himself, crossing his arms over his chest with an amused, fascinated look on his face. A peaceful, pleasing silence settles over them, but Ella feels restless, like something is missing. She’s not entirely sure about what she’s asking, but the question tumbles out of her mouth.

“Lucifer, will you show me?”

He stiffens, smile frozen in place, before it morphs into a wicked grin.

“What, Big Ben?” he asks with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. “I knew you'd want a second look after our little naked escapade. Naughty.”

“No, you weirdo!” Ella exclaims around a laugh, stepping closer to him again to slap at his chest playfully (she can still do that, it doesn’t feel different or weird, which is a relief). “Come on, you know what I mean.”

The mask of sarcasm slips from Lucifer’s face, revealing an emotion she can’t quite place. It mostly looks like worry, and dare she say, fear? The Devil, afraid of little Ella Lopez with her cat T-shirt and big white glasses?

“Yes, I know what you mean. I'm just not sure you do.”

“Well, whatever it is... I can take it” she assures him, because at this point, to Hell with it (oh, the puns won’t stop coming for a long time now, she can tell): let’s go all in. What’s the worst she can see? Horns? Goat hooves? A tail? No, somehow she knows those are fear-mongering images from the Middle Ages, created to warn and terrorize potential sinners.

Lucifer studies her in silence, making her squirm under his searching gaze. Does he... see her? Like, through her, in her soul? Does he know her sins and desires when he looks at her? Does he know exactly what to do to try and... tempt her, but consciously decides not to? Suddenly she feels small, powerless, inferior as she stares back at the magnitude of what he is, at the millennia he has lived. But she tries not to show it or he will notice and backtrack.

Lucifer’s examination ends abruptly, when he tentatively asks, “The bad part first, or the good one?”

Ella thinks about it for a moment, even though she can't fully grasp the meaning behind the question.

“The bad first" she concludes. “You know, so that the good one softens the blow. I guess?”

“Very well" Lucifer whispers in defeat. He doesn’t look very convinced, and there is an underlying sense of resignation in the way he closes his eyes and sighs. Ella wants to prove him wrong: she can take it, truly, she won’t disappoint. Apparently the supernatural has taken a liking to her, so let’s roll with it.

But when it happens, when his face _changes_, she takes a step back, she can’t help it. Her right hand shoots up to the cross dangling from her neck on instinct; a habit to ground herself, to find balance when a particularly hard hit threatens to make her fall. Lucifer – his face red, his eyes two pits of liquid fire – doesn’t miss the gesture, of course, and as his skin goes back to normal his expression turns incredibly sad and pained. _Damn it._

“No, wait, I'm- I'm sorry" Ella stutters, both of her hands on her chest for emphasis. “It’s just a habit to calm down when I'm, you know...”

“..scared" Lucifer fills in, and the single word is cold as steel as he grinds his teeth together in controlled anger – not exactly at her, Ella senses, but at himself for thinking it would go differently.

“Lost" she corrects him then. She swallows, knowing she has to play her cards right if she doesn’t want him to run away. “This is... a lot to take in, man. Even for a believer like me. It just comforts me to feel him there, that’s all.”

She could ask if Lucifer knows Jesus, or if he’s real, too, but she knows better than to go down that road. There is only so much she can process in a day, as brave and special as she might think she is. What if he’s a fairytale? What if he hates puppies? What if he has a secret rule about indoor chickens she doesn’t know about?

“Do it again” she says as she goes back to the task at hand, finding strength in a new feeling of resolve, determined to make this night end on a good note. “Come on, this time I know what to expect.”

“I don’t think-"

“Don’t make me slap it out of you, bro, ‘cause you know I will.”

Lucifer lifts his hands in surrender, which makes her smile because he could probably incinerate her on the spot if he wanted – something that _shouldn’t_ make her smile, but... well, if it hasn’t happened at this point, he clearly has no intention to. Has he ever... killed someone? Apart from Pierce in self-defense? Will she ever find the guts to ask him?

Wait, not Pierce. When they were at the penthouse, before Lucifer and Chloe left and walked into a trap, he called him Cain. The one... from the Bible. Which means Eve was also _that_ Eve and Ella had drugs with her and _made out_ with her and- aaand back to freaking out it is, then. Or at least internally, because she has a mission here. _Focus._

When Lucifer’s face changes again, Ella is ready. She doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t budge, and even though she doesn’t find it in herself to touch, she takes the time to properly look. Gosh, it’s scary, not that she’ll ever say it out loud. It reminds her of Freddy Krueger from the horror movies. But Lucifer is not a serial killer that will hunt her down and murder her in her nightmares. He’s just... fallen.

_Oh._

This isn’t what he looked like, in the beginning. This isn’t what he was _supposed_ to look like. He was the most beautiful of them all, she knows – his pride and vanity a blasphemy and an unforgivable disobedience to the Lord, the Bible tells her, and Ella doesn’t know what to believe but she doesn’t doubt for a moment that his light must have been the shiniest, up there, because it’s a fact that life is just _brighter_ with him in it. Is this why Rae-Rae advised her to come to L.A.? For her to meet him?

For him to meet her?

“You look like a rotten tomato" she tells him, before she genuinely bursts out laughing, heartfelt and silly and probably inappropriate – but it seems to be contagious because Lucifer chuckles and God, it’s still _him_ underneath.

Grateful for Ella’s ability to joke about it, he lets his face turn human again as he shakes his head, his expression lighter and young, so young that for a moment Ella feels like she’s the big sister instead, and wonders if this is her part in His Grand Plan. She quickly decides that it is, and that she’s perfectly fine with it. The Devil’s keeper. Oh well, all she ever does is worry and keep tabs on all her real brothers; this won’t be all that different.

“You are ready for the good part, I reckon" Lucifer tells her. She nods, expectant: the worst has passed, and the road is all downhill from here, apparently.

Two massive white wings appear behind Lucifer’s back, prompted into existence by a minuscule movement of his shoulders. Ella’s already big eyes widen almost comically, she knows. She takes in the sight of him in its entirety before letting her gaze focus on one part at a time, from the tip of one wing to where it seems to meet Lucifer’s body _under_ the shirt. The pale light of the moon makes the feathers glimmer, a mother-of-pearl kind of quality to them. Ella wonders what Azrael's wings look like, and if she’ll let her find out next time she comes to visit.

And also...

“You will totally fly me to places with those, you know it, right? Man, imagine how much I can save on flight tickets now!”

Lucifer laughs, his feathers – holy crap, _his_ feathers – shaking with the force of it. Ella has no shame in admitting he probably is the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, but if she says it out loud she’ll never hear the end of it.

“You are impossible, has anyone ever told you?” asks the angel standing in front of her; the son of the dawn, the Lightbringer, the star of the morning – oh wait, the surname, now _that_ is a clever touch.

Ella distantly wonders how she’ll manage to keep her mouth shut and not tell the whole precinct, the whole congregation, the whole _world_ (how much does it cost to rent one of those airplanes you can attach a message to?) that she knows him, that he exists, that he lives among them and happily so; that he found love (man, Chloe is in for a _very_ long conversation) and colleagues and friends whose acceptance will hopefully be enough to shield him from the hatred of everyone else.

Ugh, the urge to rub it in her relatives’ faces is strong (not to mention all the people who mocked her for being religious over the years), but she knows she’ll have to carry this secret to her grave. _What if Satan was one of us? Just a slob like one of us..._

“Well, so are you, or should have been" she replies with a cocky grin, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yet here we are.”

“Here we are" Lucifer echoes, amused.

And with a certainty that might come from faith, but not just that, Ella feels like they are exactly where they’re supposed to be.


End file.
